Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Sept 24 2008 Retro

This morning Moon in Leo is pulling away from square Venus and sextile Sun, leaving the orb by 4 pm PST. With a big "however" these transits are generally easy, good feeling, leaving breathing room, allowing perspective. Around 8pm PST, Moon moves into the orb of opposite Chiron, exact by early tomorrow morning. One might experience a bit of touchiness to criticism, or the converse of being overly protective or protected (smothered). Might be interesting dream themes. As to the slower transits, Sun is still square Pluto, Saturn is approaching an opposite of Uranus; while on the lighter side Neptune is trine the now spread trio of Mercury/Venus/Mars and Pluto is sextile to both Neptune and the trio. A time for letting go of antiquated patterns and systems. Dreams and ideals, implementation of new ideas, fated partnerships/relationships all may be in the cards, except...

The big however is Mercury Retrograde, infamous and insidious and worth repeating here: If communication is missed, misunderstood or combative, desires are thwarted or blocked, you feel stuck or bottled, interpretations are taken in the worst possible way, that's retrograde---the shadow or trickster side of Hermes. It could be opposite day, but it might not be. If you ask if it is opposite day during opposite day, what answer do you get? See the Mercury Retrograde link on the left under connections. The official retrograde is September 24th through October 15th, however there is more to it. Think of overlapping waves, and think of a slowly swinging pendulum. At the upper end of each swing it slows down before reversing direction. Likewise, the relative motion between Earth and Mercury passes through phases of forward, stiction, reverse, stiction, repeat. The stiction phases overlapping with the "actual" retrograde are in some ways less fun and more troubling than the "pure" retrograde. So, September 19th through 29th are stiction days, followed by pure retro Sept 30th through October 10th (days without the stiction), followed by exit stiction October 11th through October 18th. Relationships are prone to questioning and upsets during the stiction phase, those with a deep or solid connection will survive. An Archetypal explanation as to why bouncebacks usually don't last is that they start during retrograde right after a stiction induced breakup. There will likely be a collective sigh of relief October 15th or 16th.

The Birthcard of the day is the powerful King of Hearts, a Mars expression of a Mercury core. It is the Birthcard of Joe Biden. The mythologies of Marduk (Babylonian) and Brigid (Celtic) may add light to this one.